The Bhor Saidan, formerly also spelled Bhour Saidan and Bhoor Saiydan, is a village located 22 km from

Kurukshetra Kurukshetra () is a city and administrative headquarters of Kurukshetra district in the Indian state of Haryana. It is also known as Dharmakshetra ("Realm of duty") and as the "Land of the Bhagavad Gita". Legends According to the Puranas ...

and 13 km west of

Thanesar Thanesar (IAST: Sthāṇvīśvara) is a historic city and Hindu pilgrimage sites, Hindu pilgrimage centre in the Kurukshetra district of Haryana, India. It is located approximately 160 km northwest of Delhi. The city Kurukshetra's area merge ...

on the Kurukshetra-Pehowa road near Bhureeshwar Temple, one of the pilgrimage sites on the river bed of now extinct

Sarasvati River The Sarasvati River () is a Apotheosis, deified myth, mythological Rigvedic rivers, river first mentioned in the Rigveda and later in Vedas, Vedic and post-Vedic texts. It played an important role in the Historical Vedic religion, Vedic religio ...

in the Indian state of

Haryana Haryana () is a States and union territories of India, state located in the northern part of India. It was carved out after the linguistic reorganisation of Punjab, India, Punjab on 1 November 1966. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with les ...

. It is also the location of Crocodile Breeding Centre, Kurukshetra.

Etymology

''Bhor Saidan'' village was named after

Kaurava ''Kaurava'' is a Sanskrit term which refers to descendants of Kuru, a legendary king of India who is the ancestor of many of the characters of the epic ''Mahabharata''. Usually, the term is used for the 100 sons of King Dhritarashtra and his ...

hero Bhurisrava of

Mahabharta The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; , , ) is one of the two major Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India revered as Smriti texts in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the events and aftermath of the Kuru ...

, son of Somadutta the king of Vaishali.

Bhor Saidan Archeology mound

''Bhor Saidan'' sits on an ancient archeological mound, on the banks of dried up river bed of

that dried up due to the movement of tectonic plates. Curator Archaeologist of Shrikrishna Museum in Kurushketra, Rajesh Purohit, discovered

Painted Grey Ware culture The Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) is an Iron Age in India, Iron Age Indo-Aryan people, Indo-Aryan Archaeological culture, culture of the western Gangetic plain and the Ghaggar-Hakra River, Ghaggar-Hakra valley in the Indian subcontinent, conve ...

(1200 BCE to 600 BCE)) pottery from the

Vedic period The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (–900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the e ...

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; , , ) is one of the two major Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India revered as Smriti texts in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the events and aftermath of the Kuru ...

. Chairman of

Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra (KUK) is a university established on 11January 1956 in Kurukshetra, in the Indian state of Haryana, from the capital, Delhi. It is a member of Association of Commonwealth Universities. History The univers ...

's geology department, Rk Chaudhari, who collaborated with

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) is an Indian central public sector undertaking which is the largest government-owned oil and gas explorer and producer in the country. It accounts for around 70 percent of India's domestic pro ...

in 2006 to conducted a study of Bhor Saidan's course of Sarasvati river, explains that the sedimentary samples from Bhor Saidan and other sites along the Sarwasati river were similar to with those found in the upper

Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than 100 pea ...

Government of Haryana Government of Haryana, also known as the State Government of Haryana, or locally as the Haryana Government, is the supreme governing authority of the Indian state of Haryana and its 22 districts. It consists of an executive, ceremonially led ...

is working on implementing the plan to make the Sarasvati river flow again, by diverting the water from the

Somb river The Somb river, also spelled Som river (Hindi: सोम नदी) is a tributary of Yamuna in Haryana state of India. Origin and route The ''Somb river'' originates in the Shivalik hills near Adi Badri (Haryana) in Yamunanagar district on t ...

, along Sarasvati river's ancient route from

Adi Badri (Haryana) Adi Badri, also Sri Sarasvati Udgam Tirath,Pehowa Pehowa () (old name Pitrudhak Teerth) is a town and a municipal committee in Kurukshetra district in the Indian state of Haryana. It is an important sacred Hindu pilgrimage site, related to Krishna and the ''Mahabharata'', within the 48 Kos P ...

via Bhor Saidan.

Bhurishrava Tirtha

Bhor Saidan Tirath with Bhurirava kund (pond named after Bhurisrava) who was killed by the

Satyaki Yuyudhana (, ), better known as Satyaki (, ), was a powerful Yadava chieftain of Narayani Sena, belonging to the Vrishni clan to which Krishna also belonged. According to the Puranas, he was the grandson of Shini of the Vrishni clan, and son of ...

war, is an ancient Tirth (sacred place) within

48 kos parikrama of Kurukshetra The 48 kos parikrama is a parikrama (a circumbabulatory pilgrimage) of various ''Mahabharata''-related and other Vedic-era tirthas (Hindu sacred sites) around the Hindu holy city of Kurukshetra in the state of Haryana, India. Associated ...

pilgrimage circuit of

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

tirths.

Crocodiles Sanctuary At Bhor Saidan

Crocodile Breeding Centre, Kurukshetra origin lies in the fact that

Mugger crocodile The mugger crocodile (''Crocodylus palustris'') is a medium-sized broad-snouted crocodile, also known as mugger and marsh crocodile. It is native to freshwater habitats from south-eastern Iran to the Indian subcontinent, where it inhabits marsh ...

s are believed to have been brought by one of the

Mahant Mahant () is a religious superior, in particular the chief of a temple or the head of a monastery in Indian religions. James Mallinson, one of the few westerners to be named as a mahant, describes the position of a mahant as a combination of an ...

s of the nearby temple of the ''Bhor Saidan Tirath'' in the 1930s. In 1980,

Forests Department, Haryana Forests Department, Haryana is a department of the Government of Haryana, a States and union territories of India, state in India, that runs and maintains many protected nature areas in the state of Haryana. It has two administrative divisions: ...

took over the breeding centre and the Bhor Saidan village panchayat gave 15+ acre land to the

to start the breeding centre. Periphery has been fenced and a mound inside the pond was created to watch the crocodiles from the close range.

Demography

As per the 2011 Census of India, the village has a population of 2289; 1234 males and 1055 females in 422 families, with a literacy rate of 71.15%, 78.63% literate male and 62.72% literate female.

External links

Official website of Kurukshetra

Kurukshetra in thedivineindia.com

References

{{Haryana 48 kos parikrama of Kurukshetra Indus Valley Civilisation sites Tourism in Haryana Archaeological sites in Haryana Villages in Kurukshetra district Mahabharata Hindu pilgrimage sites in India Hindu holy cities